Greg thinks of himself as an average American teenager, until he learns that his parents are Soviet spies. When their operation is exposed, their hasty retreat to Russia marks the beginning of an odyssey and awakening for Greg. His quest to return to the only life he knows and to Jessica, a girl he recently met, only becomes possible when he befriends Alexei, a red Army vet determined to defect.
Their attempted escape is laced with humor, as well as tragedy, as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster unfolds. Greg sees that average people everywhere are much alike and how political parties "play" average people, alienating them from one another and sometimes from the better part of their nature. He learns that America and the Soviet Union share some things, some good, some not, like a few of what Mahatma Ghandi condemned as Cardinal Sins.
As he comes to question the idea of coincidence as well as his strong attraction to Jess, he finds truth in the old Rolling Stones song, that you can't always get what you want but sometimes get what you need. His story is woven with historical fact and commentary on current political and social issues, as seen from the common-sense perspective of his diverse, struggling, blue-collar neighborhood.
